GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. – Colorado Mesa women's soccer advanced to the semifinals of the RMAC Tournament, where they will host a confident opponent coming off a stunning and emotional upset win.

The Mavs jumped out to a three-goal lead in a 3-2 win over MSU Denver in the RMAC Tournament quarterfinals and have a quick turnaround to a semifinal game on Wednesday against Westminster, who knocked off top-seeded UCCS in Colorado Springs on Sunday. With one more win, Colorado Mesa will reach its first RMAC Tournament final since the 2011 season.

CMU and Westminster will play at 5 p.m. this Wednesday at Community Hospital Unity Field in Grand Junction, with the winner advancing to the RMAC Tournament Championship game. The other semifinal, between Colorado School of Mines and Regis, kicks off at 2 p.m. Wednesday.
Under a new policy enacted by the RMAC, conference tournament games are now on a pay-per-view model. The game can also be followed via live stats and tickets remain available.

A Note From the RMAC
The Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference has announced the addition of a subscription model to all 2023-24 RMAC championship broadcasts on the RMAC Network, the league announced Wednesday. The announcement comes after support from league leadership in the summer to implement the pay-per-view concept as a manner to offset the league's broadcasting initiatives and operations associated with championship events.
 
Among the RMAC fall championship sports within the subscription model are all three rounds of tournament play for men's soccer, women's soccer and volleyball. Winter sports with championship events within the league's subscription model are men's basketball, women's basketball, women's wrestling, indoor track and field and swimming and diving. Men's lacrosse, women's lacrosse, baseball, softball and outdoor track and field round out the subscription events for the 2023-24 academic year.
 
Fans will be able to purchase day passes for each day of tournament play, priced at $9.95 per day. To purchase the day pass, fans will navigate to www.rmacnetwork.com and will be directed to select the institution that they are supporting through their viewership. Once the payment submission is complete, fans will have access to any RMAC championship contest available for that specific sport. Day passes will expire within 24 hours of the purchase.
 
For technical support questions, fans may submit a support ticket with Hudl Support or email the RMAC directly (help@rmacsports.org). For further support, fans can visit the RMAC Network Help page.

Looking Back
Colorado Mesa built a big lead and withstood a second-half charge from No. 5 seed MSU Denver as the fourth-seeded Mavericks defeated the Roadrunners 3-2 in the RMAC Tournament quarterfinal.

RECAP: MSU Denver

Sauvelyne Randel and Adessa Correa scored in the opening third of the match before Kylie Wells curled a shot to the far post off a Randel assist to make it 3-0 CMU in the 51^st minute. The Roadrunners answered back with a 54^th-minute goal and cut the lead to one with a goal with just 21 seconds remaining in the match.

Tournament Update
Three of the RMAC's four higher seeds won their quarterfinal matches during the first round of the RMAC Tournament this past Sunday, but the conference's regular season champs did not advance.

Eighth-seeded Westminster, who nabbed the conference's final tournament qualifying spot despite losing three of its last four regular-season matches, stunned top-seeded UCCS 1-0 in overtime. The Mountain Lions, fresh off winning the RMAC regular season championship back on November 1, will now have to hope their regular season resume is enough to be one of the South Central Region's six teams in the NCAA Tournament.

After the teams were scoreless through 90 minutes of regulation, senior Griffins midfielder Emma Geiges scored on a free kick in the 102^nd minute to put the visitors up 1-0. Goalkeeper Mashaun Estridge was the hero for Westminster, making nine saves on the day and making a clutch penalty-kick save in the 106^th minute to prevent UCCS from re-tying the score.

The Mountain Lions outshot the Griffins 19-9 but could not find the net. Both teams combined for 35 fouls and four yellow cards, two to each team.

On the other side of the bracket, No. 2 Colorado School of Mines topped No. 7 Fort Lewis 3-0 behind a hat trick from recently-crowned RMAC Freshman of the Year Bella Campos. Campos, whose 15 goals this season lead the RMAC (three ahead of CMU's Sauvelyne Randel), scored in the 31^st, 34^th and 73^rd minutes against the Skyhawks.

Third-seeded Regis was pushed by the No. 6 seed, CSU Pueblo, but the Rangers got it done 3-1 in overtime. CSU Pueblo had a 1-0 lead at halftime after scoring on a corner kick in the 16^th minute and held the lead for much of the game, but Rangers senior Kelby Kuo scored in the 80^th minute to even the score and send the match to overtime.

Regis poured on in the extra period, taking the lead on a corner kick in the 94^th minute and doubling their advantage on first-team All-RMAC forward Natalie Bunch's 11^th goal of the season in the 99^th minute.

Wednesday's schedule will feature No. 3 Regis at No. 2 Colorado School of Mines at 2 p.m. and No. 8 Westminster vs. No. 4 Colorado Mesa at 5 p.m. The Mines/Regis semifinal is a rematch of the 2022 RMAC Tournament Championship game, won by Mines. With all RMAC Tournament games hosted by the higher seed, the No. 2 Mines/No. 3 Regis winner is assured of hosting the championship game against the No. 4 CMU/No. 8 Westminster winner.

Hello Again
Colorado Mesa will now face Westminster for the second Wednesday in a row after concluding the regular season against the Griffins last week. The Mavericks beat the Griffins 3-1 in Salt Lake City on November 1, snapping what had been a three-game losing streak for Colorado Mesa.

Colorado Mesa's three goal scorers against MSU Denver (Sauvelyne Randel, Adessa Correa and Kylie Wells) also had all the points against Westminster. Randel set a season-high with five points against the Griffins, scoring the Mavericks' first and second goals and tallying an assist along with Correa on CMU's third. Wells scored CMU's third goal, her fifth of the season, and also assisted on Randel's first goal.

Westminster goalkeeper Mashaun Estridge, a senior in her second season at Westminster after transferring from Utah Tech, made a career-high nine saves against Colorado Mesa, a total she matched in the RMAC Tournament quarterfinal win over UCCS.

Westminster has been a force in the RMAC and Division II since making the jump from NAIA in 2015. The Griffins have been in every RMAC Tournament since first becoming eligible for them in 2018, with highlights including an RMAC Tournament championship game appearance in 2020 and an NCAA Tournament appearance in 2021.

Both Westminster and Colorado Mesa are searching for their first women's soccer RMAC Tournament championships, and the winner of Wednesday's semifinal will reach its program's second tournament final. Westminster previously went in 2020, losing on penalty kicks to CSU Pueblo, while Colorado Mesa hasn't reached an RMAC Tournament final since 2011, when the fourth-seeded Mavs beat top-seeded Regis in the semis but lost to second-seeded Colorado School of Mines in the final, 2-0.

Regional Rankings
The NCAA released its second edition of the regional rankings last Wednesday, a preview of potential NCAA tournament selections. The most current edition of the regional rankings does not factor in any of last weekend's games.

The NCAA Women's Soccer national tournament is broken down into eight regions. Six teams qualify from the South Central region, consisting of the RMAC and the Lone Star Conference. Eight teams are ranked in the regional rankings to show which teams would be in and which teams are the first couple of teams out.

Colorado Mesa is currently No. 5 in the NCAA's South Central regional rankings from November 1. The Mavs trail Dallas Baptist, Colorado School of Mines, Texas Woman's and UCCS. Behind CMU on the list is St. Mary's in sixth, Texas A&M International in seventh and Regis in eighth.

Since those rankings were released, Texas Woman's, UCCS and Texas A&M International all lost in the first rounds of their respective conference tournaments to teams that were not a part of last week's top eight. The Lone Star Conference semifinals feature tournament No. 1 seed Dallas Baptist vs. No. 5 seed Midwestern State while No. 2 seed St. Mary's will face No. 3 seed Angelo State. Mines, CMU and Regis are still alive in the RMAC Tournament semifinals.

A new regional ranking (not including this upcoming Wednesday's matches) will be released by the NCAA on Wednesday.

All-Conference Teams
Women's soccer placed three players on the RMAC First Team All-Conference and six total players earned some sort of recognition. The three first-team picks are the third-most ever in program history and the most in a year since 1999.

All-Conference Release

Sauvelyne Randel, Abby Fotheringham and Carli Dare were each named first team All-RMAC while Kylie Wells and Ally Wachtel grabbed spots on the second team. Goalkeeper Keely Wieczorek earned All-RMAC Honorable Mention.

With the first-team honor for Dare, the Mavs have now gone four straight seasons with a first-team All-RMAC player from Fruita Monument High School, part of Grand Junction's Mesa County Valley School District 51. Dare joins Michaela Dangler (2020 and 2021) and Lila Dere (2021 and 2022) as former Wildcats to become first-team All-RMAC players at CMU under head coach Megan Remec. Sophomore forward Kylie Wells, yet another Fruita Monument graduate, was a second-team forward in 2023.

About Westminster
Picked fourth in the RMAC preseason poll, Westminster snuck into the RMAC Tournament as the No. 8 seed but have now reached the conference's top four with an upset quarterfinal win over top-seed UCCS.

Prior to the upset win, Westminster only had one win in its final six regular season games, including a 3-1 loss to Colorado Mesa in the regular-season finale. The Griffins are 7-8-3 overall and accumulated a 4-5-2 record in the RMAC in 2023.

Graduate forward Cassidy Orr is the Griffins' leading scorer with six goals, although she has only scored once in her last nine matches. Junior midfielder Necie Gubler has four goals and four assists while five Griffins have two goals each, including midfielder Emma Geiges, who had the free-kick game winner against UCCS on Sunday.

Senior Mashaun Estridge has started 11 games in goal, returning from a six-game layoff to make nine saves against both CMU and UCCS. For the season, Estridge has a 1.54 goals-against average and a .733 save percentage with 44 stops against 16 goals conceded. In Estridge's absence, freshman Brighton Jakeman has 23 saves against just five goals conceded for an .821 save percentage and a 0.73 goals-against average in six starts.

Head coach Tony LeBlanc is in the midst of his 17^th season as the first and, to date, only women's soccer coach in Westminster history. LeBlanc led the Griffins to the NCAA Tournament in 2021 and has a streak of 11 straight seasons with a winning record during his time in Salt Lake. LeBlanc also took the Griffins to compete in consecutive NAIA National Championships before the school entered NCAA Division II.

Colorado Mesa has traditionally struggled against Westminster, only mustering a 3-7-1 overall record against the Griffins. All three wins have come over the last four seasons.

Coach's Corner
Mavericks head coach Megan Remec is in her fourth season at the helm of the CMU program.
 
In her debut campaign, played in spring 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Remec led the Mavericks to a winning 5-4-1 record and to the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Tournament for the first time since 2017.

In her first full season in fall 2021, CMU finished 14-4 with a 10-2 RMAC record, winning the program's first regular-season RMAC title since 2000. At the conclusion of the 2021 season, Remec was named the RMAC Coach of the Year, becoming just the second individual Colorado Mesa coach to win that honor and the first since that same 2000 season.

Prior to CMU, Remec spent five seasons as an assistant coach at RMAC rival MSU Denver and was also an assistant coach at Elmhurst College (Division III) in Illinois.